This 'n' that

Jenny's swain (pictured above, he's the left side of the two guys on the tree trunk) is leaving Saturday for a nearly three week long annual rugged hiking trip he takes with his siblings and father. It's rough camping and hiking, and they take two sets of clothes, washing the other in the lake every few days.  Jenny doesn't have the camping equipment necessary, and it's not really her cuppa. 


We've been seeing a lot of these critters lately.  Naturually, that means we sing the following song to the Dread Pirate Grasshopper and Nod:

Fuzzy caterpillar
Wiggled up a tree
He wiggled short
And he wiggled long
And he wiggled right at me
I put him in a box
"Don't go away," I said.
But when I opened up the box
there was a butterfly instead
Now I could never make one,
No matter how I tried
Only God in heaven
Can make a butterfly

Take a look at this southern charmer singing it if you don't know the tune.

We're having company for supper, and since they're coming from down south where the Swain lives, he's hitching a ride up with them for one last visit with Jenny before he has to leave for his backpacking trip.  Aww. They are reading Proverbs and The Gammage Cug together.  Why the Gammage Cup?  Jenny picked it as something fun, light, but one of her old favorites from her AmblesideOnline days.

Our company is bringing the dessert.  I think we'll be having beef heart chili and home-made cornbread for supper, only not me. I'll set aside some meat and have it with a dollop of sour cream and a bit of cheese.

My new doctor prefers South Beach over Atkins, but he also diagnosed heel spurs instead of a torn achilles tendon from x-rays, unlike the old dr, so I am tentatively happy. He's also doing some more extensive thyroid testing as well as three hour blood sugar tests, which the other doctor felt unnecessary.
OTOH, he was kind of pushy about mammograms, which I have no intention of getting. "You don't trust me," he said in surprised and slightly chiding tones. "So I will drop it for now and wait until we build a better rapport and you feel more comfortable."
I would have liked to deny it, but then realized I was holding my breath while he merely checked my breathing and heart-rate. It's a bit hard to check the breathing of somebody who is holding her breath.
And, actually, no, I don't trust strangers just because they have a medical degree (see last doctor, missed diagnosis of bone spurs for me, some more serious asthma needs for Pip, and arrested for a most improper assault of a patient in his office).

I think it's time for some cheesecake shots:

Three little baby cheesecakes.  Aren't they adorable?  In pink is the baby of one of the Striderling's wonderful, wonderful milk donors.  She's talking to the Striderling.  Looking on is the Dread Pirate Grasshopper.

The DPG and I have moved on from watching the llama video on you-tube.  Now we watch Old MacDonald and Barney singing the I Love You song.  Yes, Barney.  I am so ashamed. 
We also sing Old MacDonald with him- we let him choose the animals.  The other day we were driving the 45 minutes south to visit the Striderling and Pip and the DPG were in the back, singing away, but he was tired, and he dropped suddenly off to sleep when it was his turn to pick an animal.  He awoke abruptly as we turned into the driveway half an hour later and as he opened his eyes he was already saying, "Ee-i-ee-i-oh had a cow. Moo."

Two different people left me a link to this blogpost yesterday, so I figure I must really, really need to read it, and I do like the looks of it (and of the whole blog, actually).  I particularly appreciate the point that if you don't have laundry and your basic meals under control, it almost doesn't matter what your New Year's Resolutions are.  I would add that pernicious habit of putting things down instead of away. I really think my life would be immediately improved by at least 100 percent if I just did that one little thing.  That, and go to bed on time.  Which I am not.  Don't ask what time I am actually typing this.

Time to change the subject again.

Blooming:

Picture by Pip.  And so is this one:

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins